


A Little Q & A Time

by misura



Category: Law & Order: Trial by Jury
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 15:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2030661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"It was you," Chris said, and given that it was the answer to a question Hector'd asked him two weeks, five days and three hours, give or take a couple of minutes, ago, Hector looking at him confused rather than enlightened was probably entirely justified.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Q & A Time

"It was you," Chris said, and given that it was the answer to a question Hector'd asked him two weeks, five days and three hours, give or take a couple of minutes, ago, Hector looking at him confused rather than enlightened was probably entirely justified.

"Me ... in the library with the candlestick?" Hector asked. "Didn't realize we were going to be playing a rousing game of Clue during this stake-out."

Chris didn't point out how this hardly qualified as a stake-out - not to a real cop, anyway.

Two guys sitting in a car, waiting, did not a stake-out make. For one thing, they'd barely been here for an hour; for another, they were parked in full view, more or less. Plus, they hadn't brought any food, or even a thermos of coffee.

"The reason I came to work for the DA's office," he said.

Hector looked slightly less confused. "Huh."

Chris wasn't sure what reaction he'd been looking or maybe hoping for, but he didn't think that was it. He shrugged.

"Thanks," Hector said. "I guess."

"Yeah," Chris said. He might have cracked a joke, he figured, about how he'd felt the DA's office deserved some better quality investigator than Hector - a real cop, in other words, but that might have gone down the wrong way. He was looking to keep a conversation going here, not hurt Hector's feelings.

After all, Chris'd _chosen_ to be here; Hector'd just had bad luck and _settled_ for being here.

"We're, you know, glad to have you with us," Hector said. "Most of the time."

It probably didn't mean anything that Hector was saying 'we' rather than 'I'. Hector was a team-player. It made him an easy guy to get along with, and a hard guy to get to know.

Chris wondered what Hector was like in bed, what it would take to get a bit of a rise out of him, some reaction less prompted by what was supposed to be good for the team and more by what Hector wanted himself.

Then he wondered if maybe it was a bit cocky to wonder about stuff like that and _not_ wonder if what Hector wanted might looked even remotely like Chris.

"We're a good team, I think," he said, and Hector nodded pleasantly, easily, rolling with it, so then Chris added (or clarified, to his own mind), "You and me."

"Partners," Hector said, and smiled, and Chris thought _shit_ because it was one thing to speculate about sex with someone and another sort of animal entirely to have someone smile at you and feel like they'd just made your world about ten times as bright as it had been before.

"You miss it, huh?" Dumb question, really. Good, if he'd been looking to change the subject, get that smile off of Hector's face, but otherwise dumb.

Hector looked away before he said, "Not anymore," which meant he might as well have said 'every damn day' instead. "I mean, this job ain't so bad. And I'm still making myself useful, you know? Serving the community, making the world a little bit of a safer place - know what I mean?"

Chris imagined Hector as a rookie cop, all awkward desire to please, to fit in, mixed with the sort of painful sincerity that enabled people to say they wanted to 'make the world a safer place'.

Not exactly his idea of an ideal partner. Good for doing the paperwork, but hard to spend a lot of time with, to trust to have your back. "You had a partner?"

"What's this - twenty question time?" Hector asked, but his tone was still light, easy, not like he minded or anything. "Did _you_?"

Translation: _did you dump someone just so you could be with me?_ Although Hector probably wouldn't have put it quite so bluntly. "Nope," Chris said.

"I did," Hector said. "Nice guy."

_Yeah? Then why is it me sitting here with you instead of him?_

"He was, you know, not so cocky," Hector went on. "Pretty good-looking, though. Kind of like you, except, well, more."

"And less," Chris said, which got him a raised eyebrow. "Cocky."

"Yeah, but that's not a bad thing," Hector said. "I mean, _I_ don't think that's such a bad thing."

"You think I'm too cocky?" _You think I'm 'pretty good-looking'?_ Or possibly that should be: _you think your partner was better-looking than I am?_ Guy must have been some looker. Well, that, or Hector should look into getting his eyes checked.

"I think you're a little cocky, yeah," Hector said. His tone didn't imply that was a bad thing, but then, it didn't imply that he thought it was a _good_ thing, either.

"Kibre thinks I'm cocky." Chris didn't add _'too'_.

"Kibre's right pretty often," Hector said. "She's a sharp one, you know? Smart. Doesn't miss much."

'Sharp' was a very good adjective to desribe someone like Kibre, Chris thought. He liked working for her - generally speaking, he even liked working _with_ her. She wasn't easy-going, though. Not someone to easily roll along with things.

In other words, she wasn't Hector, but Chris figured he could see how she and Hector were a good fit, as prosecutor and investigator, as person-in-charge and person-following-orders.

"That she doesn't," he agreed.

Hector nodded and said, "So I guess you really must like me a lot, huh?" which felt like a bit of a non sequitur, unless _Kibre_ had told Hector he did, which ... well.

Probably not good. "That what she said?"

Hector snorted. "Don't need Kibre to tell me that. But, yeah. She sat me down the other day for, you know. The talk. Fun."

Chris felt there might be some verbs and nouns missing from that last bit. "The talk?"

"Don't mess around in the car," Hector said. "Don't mess around at the office. Don't mess around where the press might snap a picture. That kind of stuff. Oh, and she also said that she's gonna break both your legs if you break my heart, which I figured is just her way of saying she likes me more than she likes you, but don't feel all bad about that - it's probably just that you're still kind of the new guy."

"Right," Chris said. He'd been considering ways to suggest grabbing a drink after work, methods of gently steering the conversation to a point where he could say _'I'm bisexual'_ without risking having this whole thing blow up in his face.

He'd even considered calling his ex-wife for pointers, which was as clear a sign of impending insanity as he'd ever noticed in himself.

Meanwhile, Hector, apparently, had figured out that Chris liked him, that Hector liked him back, and that therefore, there might be 'messing around' in the near future, in some Kibre-approved, private location.

"Right," Chris repeated. "So uh, what place did you have in mind, then?"

"Guess it's gonna be either yours or mine," Hector said. "Don't make much difference to me. Might be good to get our guy first, though."


End file.
